Dispatches from the Fringe # 4: Clavis Argentum

It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. While the process is processing, there will always be that one rehearsal where people are crabby, and I think that was last Friday. We had that rehearsal where everyone is low energy, and it’s the end of the week. People were late, and so we started off on the wrong foot, an hour late. Rehearsal feels like treading water through mud, and we are making very little headway. We are starting to have annoying questions for the director, and rather urgently.

When are we doing the make-up tests?

When are we getting our props?

When is everything going to be perfect and everyone is actually going to be here for rehearsal at the same time and I will magically be off book?

Action shot, but not really. More like waiting for the whole cast to show up shot.

In this frame of mind, it all gets a little passive aggressive. It gets snippy. It’s less of a team and more of a “fuck this” noise. This always passes, but this is when the cord is fraying. Fringe is in less than a month now, and I for one, do not want to look like an asshole on stage. And I know that I won’t. It will all come together, and we have a bucket of time booked for rehearsal between now and then. But in this in-between space of birthing the work, the baby looks squishy. It still has gunk in its eyes. It has unidentifiable red stuff on it that looks gooey. It’s not all the way out. It does not inspire confidence.

It doesn’t help that its Friday and we have a full week’s worth of our life inside of our bodies and we may be a little dehydrated. We are definitely underslept. I know that I am personally rocking about four hours of sleep, but that’s because my cat is a jerk. I know that the producer and director are not sleeping because they are living and breathing this at every moment of every day, worrying about it all way more than I am.

We make it through relatively unscathed. I pass out about 20 minutes after I get home, and I am drunk from exhaustion. And I hope that next time will be better, because today, it feels like no fun.

Angela Potvin has been Fringing for 14 years now, and that makes her feel old. She’s performing in the Clavis Argentum at TSC, also known as the show with the Latin name playing at TSC. Box office will know what you are talking about. $12. Details HERE. Read the earlier Fringe dispatches about Clavis Argentum here: #1, #2, and #3.